What are you listening to now?

Started by Dungeon Master, February 15, 2013, 09:13:11 PM

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Mirror Image

Sculthorpe's Memento mori from this recording:



Sibelius was to Finland what Sculthorpe is to Australia. One of the most unique voices to come from down under, IMHO.

Mirror Image

Stanford's The Blue Bird from this album:



The most moving performance I know of this short, but still exquisitely gorgeous piece.

RebLem

On Saturday, 12 JAN 2019, I listened to  2 CDs.


1. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957):  |Tr. 1-3.  Symphony 5 in E Flat Major, Op. 82 (30'24)  |Tr. 4-7.  Symphony 6 in D Minor, Op. 104  (28'53)--Paavo Berglund, cond., Helsinki Philharmonic Orch.  Rec. Helsinki Culture Hall, 18-19 DEC 1986 (#5), MAY, 1986 (#6).  CD 3 0f a 5 CD Warner Classics  set of the complete Sibelius symphonies, + selected other orchestral works. 

The Fifth is probably Sibelius's second most popular symphony, after the Second.  It is, uncharacteristically of Sibelius, an extroverted, optimistic work.  Originally composed in the traditional four movements, Sibelius later decided to combine the first two into one.  Horn calls are featured throughout, and I, for one, cannot listen to it without evoking images of mountain communities and scenes in my mind.   

The liner notes for the Sixth Symphony say, "The complete antithesis of its predecessor, all four movements of thee Sixth...eschew the grand manner in exchange for a stream of seamless musical poetics where everything appears to grow naturally and effortlessly out of what has preceded it."


2.  CD 4 of a 14 CD DECCA set entitled  "Arthur Grumiaux Mono Reocridngs."  |Tr. 1-3.  Mendelssohn (1809-47): Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64  (26'31)--Rudolf Moralt, cond., Wiener Symphoniker--rec. 9/1954, Wien.  |Tr. 4-6.  Paganini (1782-1840):  Violin Concert 4 in D Minor  (29'22)--Franco Gallini, cond., Orchestre de Concerts Lamoureaux--rec. 11/1954, Paris.

The Mendelssohn seems profoundly introspective.  The Paganini is a nice contrast, certainly not as great a work, but happy and extroverted, with plenty of toe-tapping provocations.  If this were the last work on a program, you would be bound to walk out of the concert hall with a little spring in your step.
"Don't drink and drive; you might spill it."--J. Eugene Baker, aka my late father.

Mirror Image

Stravinsky's Violin Concerto



Still the best performance I know of this work, but Kopatchinskaja comes in a close second-place. I like Mutter's performance a lot as well.

kyjo

Quote from: André on January 12, 2019, 05:13:35 AM
If I may, once again put on a word of commendation for the Liège Philharmonic big box  :D, it contains symphonies 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8, licensed from the original Auvidis Valois recordings.



That looks like quite a tasty set! ;) Great to see so much enthusiasm for Tournemire around here.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

kyjo

Quote from: Todd on January 12, 2019, 05:41:32 AM
The pristine sound convinced me that I need to get some solo Maximilian Hornung stuff - to date, I've only heard his ensemble playing. 

You won't regret it; he's a really fantastic cellist. I recently saw him perform Shostakovich's Cello Concerto no. 1 with the Pittsburgh Symphony - an unforgettable experience.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Mirror Image

Janáček: String Quartet No. 2, "Intimate Letters"


kyjo

#128027
Quote from: André on January 12, 2019, 01:23:05 PM


Two beautiful, very substantial cello concertos. I listened to each twice.

The Finzi opens with a somewhat blustery theme, almost melodramatically worked out to maximum effect. Having started with such a grand, sweeping flourish makes it somewhat hard to 'back down' musically, so parts of the development tend to lose steam in the process. The slow movement is a wonderful invention, its heart-on-sleeve sentiment kept in check by a welcome modesty, the composer rightly refusing to milk this plum of a theme. The last movement has a winning start, with a striking rythmic tune, but its jauntiness seems more appropriate for a « british light music » confection. While I think the work is of a high standard, I found the rather disparate character of its individual movements not wholly convincing.

Great stuff, André ('though I don't know the Leighton, yet)! I used to view the individual movements of the Finzi concerto as being too disparate, but recently I've come to appreciate the concerto as a truly convincing, cohesive whole, especially after listening to the Hugh/Griffiths (Naxos) and Watkins/Davis (Chandos) recordings. (I'm not too familiar with the Wallfisch recording, but I heard excerpts of it that didn't sound quite as good as the other recordings that are available.) I think that the finale, despite its jauntiness, is permeated with a touchingly nostalgic air ("smiling through tears") that is even more moving in the light of Finzi's impending death, of which he was aware.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

kyjo

Quote from: Mirror Image on January 12, 2019, 07:20:21 PM
Sculthorpe's Memento mori from this recording:



Sibelius was to Finland what Sculthorpe is to Australia. One of the most unique voices to come from down under, IMHO.

Love that work - so haunting. Sculthorpe's Kakadu was another great recent discovery of mine with its ritualistic atmosphere and affirmatively moving ending.
"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

Mirror Image

Quote from: kyjo on January 12, 2019, 08:13:39 PM
Love that work - so haunting. Sculthorpe's Kakadu was another great recent discovery of mine with its ritualistic atmosphere and affirmatively moving ending.

Good to see another Sculthorpe fan. It has felt like I've been praising this composer all alone for years on here. :) Do you know his work Cello Dreaming? If you don't know it, then please do check it out.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ZKs7PWXs5o8

Mirror Image

One more work before bed:

Suite bergamasque


aligreto

JS Bach: Christmas Oratorio, Part 1 [Herreweghe]



aligreto

Quote from: SonicMan46 on January 12, 2019, 11:30:45 AM
Mozart, WA - Horn Concertos & Quintet w/ David Pyatt-Neville Marriner & Acad St. Martin - new arrival to complement my other modern horn recording, along w/ two discs w/ natural horn - the Pyatt is coupled w/ the Horn Quintet, an uncommon but welcomed combination.  Dave :)



Did you enjoy the performances Dave?

vandermolen

Quote from: SymphonicAddict on January 12, 2019, 03:56:16 PM
Three impressive choral works:

Reger - Die Nonnen




Boulanger - Du fond de l'abime (Psaume 130)




Bloch - Sacred Service




The Reger surprised me by how different I thought of it at first. Much more pensive, less academic than the majority of his output, and with some cataclysmic climaxes!

About the Boulanger, it's simply incredible that a 22-year-old girl has composed such a towering masterpiece. Her choral writing is dramatic and quite sublime in some passages.

And finally, Bloch's Sacred Service... I was expecting something like this: epicness! And I received that for lots.
I love the Sacred Service by Bloch and find it very moving. I often listen to it when in need of spiritual sustenance. My favourite recording is actually on Chandos conducted by Geoffrey Simon although this was how I first got to know the work on LP. Some sections remind me of Vaughan Williams.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Que

Relistening this morning:

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This is very good, but I'm not completely won over....
As Johan van Veen points out in his review below, Skinner's reasoning behind the tinkering with the (Tudor) pitch of several of the motets to create a better transition from one motet to the next, is flawed. These motets were printed a a showpiece collection, not necessarily/probably not/obviously not to be performed as a unified sequence.

Anyway, Skinner uses one or two voices per part. To my ears the result occasionally lacks some clarity and sounds a bit murky. Whether this is due to performance, the transposition issue or acoustics (too large a venue?), I'm not sure. I also miss at times a certain directness in the perfomance style - when it sounds overly laboured, which makes it hard to connect to the music on an emotional level. "Bloodless", is term the Amazon reviewer uses, presuming we're thinking of the same...

These reservations aside, which vary noticeably from motet to motet,  this is a quite an enjoyable set with a performance style that makes a lot of steps in the right direction.

http://www.musica-dei-donum.org/cd_reviews/Obsidian_CD706.html
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/byrd-tallis-cantiones-sacrae
http://www.classical-music.com/review/complete-cantiones-sacrae-1575

Q

vandermolen

Quote from: André on January 12, 2019, 04:04:24 PM
And here it is, exactly as you describe it: moving and eloquent.



It could be argued that it is as much a song cycle as a symphony. It is cast in 3 movements, just like the cello concerto: first movement, followed by a scherzo, and ending with an adagio. It makes sense to view it as a symphony, meaning it has the structural cast of a symphonic work, despite its unusual layout. It is a powerful utterance, the more so as it avoids sounding like a Big Statement, relying instead on the creation of a strong atmosphere. The 3 poems are about the beauty of music.
I think that your analysis here Andre is spot on as it was for Finzi's Cello Concerto (above). I like the Finzi Cello Concerto and find it very moving, especially bearing in mind the circumstances of its composition but I think Finzi's genius is more evident in works like 'Dies Natalis', 'In Terra Pax' and some of his most eloquent works on a smaller scale like the New Year Music and Eclogue.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Que

Continued:

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Second Book of Songs (1600)

Amazing - this set will definitely make it onto my shortlist for 2019!  :)

Q

Irons

Quote from: Mirror Image on January 11, 2019, 10:16:50 AM
I promise you that once you've spent more time with the Rubbra symphonies, you'll come away with a great appreciation for his composing style. He was brilliant with counterpoint and a lot of his music, or, at least, in many of his symphonies, the melody leads the way while more melodies and rhythms present themselves. It's kind of a stream-of-conscientious type of compositional style, but one that I believe will reward the listener if, again, you allow it the necessary time to get under your skin.

A concise and illuminating post, thanks. The Lyrita Handley 2nd is receiving due diligence which I must say is not a hardship as the symphony motors along most impressively. Next up, the Boult 7th, again on Lyrita.
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

Traverso


vandermolen

Joubert: Symphony 2
In Memory of those killed at Sharpeville (21/03/60)
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"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).